Kaleidescape Loses Another Round In The Courts — Will It Be The Last?

It’s doubtful that the U.S. Supreme Court will ever hear digital movie server maker Kaleidescape’s case against the studio backers of DVD’s copyright protection system. But it’s not for lack of trying by Kaleidescape.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has vowed to keep on fighting, even though a Santa Clara, Calif. Superior Court judge refused to stay a permanent injunction on Kaleidescape’s DVD storage system. Kaleidescape makes home server systems designed to store and play back libraries worth of movies. Since 2004, the Hollywood studio-backed DVD Copyright Control Association has been fighting the company in court, claiming the servers illegally breach DVD copyright and licensing agreements when they swap digital content from disc to server.

Of course, physical media might be dead by the time they settle this thing. Kaleidescape spokesman Linus Wong told paidContent Tuesday that the company fully expected Judge William Monahan’s decision to uphold the injunction, which takes effect April 8. Asking for the stay, he said, frees Kaleidescape to petition the Court of Appeal immediately.

“Regardless of the outcome, we will continue to sell Kaleidescape Systems,” Wong said. “The injunction would stop Kaleidescape from manufacturing and selling systems that play back DVDs from hard disk, but it has no bearing on the system for Blu-ray Discs and CDs. We will continue to develop innovative and exciting products that provide a premier movie viewing experience for the home.”

It’s worth noting that Kaleidescape won the first trial in the case, only to have the appeals court send the proceedings back to a second superior court trial three years ago.